GOTM 08 - final spoiler (free-for-all)

[ainwood]

GOTM-08: Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. Requires that you have completed and submitted your game.

Posting Restrictions:

1. None.

For those of you that don't (or do!) like the 'normal speed', please discuss that in this thread.

 

[Mallow]

Operation Barbarossa was cancelled, because mighty German Empire was able to launch the space ship just in time Spaceship victory in 1941. Initial plan was to dominate the world, but I wanted to enjoy the game a bit longer I'm very pleased with my first Monarch game.

 

[Palpster]

Considering I'm certainly no more than an average player and this being my first ever Monarch game I am very glad to have even completed it, even if it was on Adventurer. I feel like I made all the wrong choices, but in the end still managed a Cultural Victory, don't ask me how

The fact that I survived at all amazes me. I'm pretty much the builder type guy who often neglects to update his military and loses by being conquered at Prince or even Noble levels. I feel my greatest accomplishment in this regard was keeping the Americans my best buddies until quite late in the game. By that time they had a pretty big tech lead on me and I'd been living in extreme fear of them declaring war seeing as Cologne (one of my three destined-to-be-Legendary cities) was right next to them. But Hallelujah! they never did!

In the end though I guess any and all victories here were in large part due to the fantastic starting location.

 

[Ozbenno]

Had a domination win in 1923 with 36,849 points. Obviously the normal speed effects the time of domination win but I probably had more problems with the archipelago topography !! Had to found a few cities in really horrible polar locations to get over the limit and strugged with troop deliveries at crucial times but we live and learn.

Built Stonehenge, Great Lighthouse, Colossus and Hanging Gardens all before 0AD, with Notre Dame and Great Library just after but my finest achievement in wonder placement was building Broadway in New York (for no game related reason)

Didn't found any religions but ended up with 5 holy cities due to some considerate donations by the AI .

Washington was done with by 560AD, Tokogawa 1580AD, Cyrus 1760AD, Isabella 1850AD and Victoria in the second last turn of 1921AD. I also took a few cities of Catherine at various stages.

Had never won domination on Monarch before so was happy with that but I'm sure I could have improved the date if I had my time again!!

 

[BLubmuz]

I forget the Oracle date in my first post: 1160 BC

now let's start where the first spoiler ended:
some tech trading, mainly with GW, who was becoming too advanced, so in 700 AD I declare
the attack force was a mix of catapults and maces, with some pike to protect from his horses
i needed to bombard his high cultured cities, so war was long and WW became a problem
so I sued for peace in 1120, buiding my ruined economy until 1420, until GW destruction in 1545.

in the meantime 2 things happened:

In 1120 Bismark was the first to circumnavigate the globe: actually he (me)obtained world maps exchanging techs .

The strangest thing in my civ carreer: in 1370 i wish to hook incense (stone has lost its utility) and i've
destoyed a barb warrior watching a goody hut with my first knight and, with my biiiig surprise i discovered
Astronomy (I was convinced you could only get early techs from GH)

from now on everything was focused on SS victory, I took a risk researching Liberalism after Constitution,
but i was lucky and choose Democracy (statue of liberty is very useful)
I was far ahead in techs, with my research at 90%, pushed to 100% for few turns
i conquered a barb city near incense with maces and knights, and 2 more with marines, just to increase
score, anyway they was in good spots.
nothing remarkable happened, until my SS victory in 1946 with a bit more than 18K (not much) .

not so lucky with Gpersons, i don't know why i build HE in my GL city.
now i'll try some other strategy with this game, just for practice.

 

[PsychoJ]

Lost to the AI on spaceship, unfortunately, but considering I'm a Noble player, and prefer the slower game speeds, I think the fact that I was only about 20 turns away from finishing my own spaceship was pretty good. Submitted, my first submission too

My main problem was that I expanded too slowly, and ended up crushed in with too few cities by the AI. Washington beat me to a good city spot 2 turns before my settler got there, and since I was so small I was never in a good position to war with him or the others . Managed to keep both him and Victoria on my good side though, as both raced to the top of the scoreboard and I sank halfway down, set up a defensive pact triangle that probably saved my life against Isabella and Tokugawa.

Final score was about 2800 or so, less because I was on Adventurer (I know, it's rubbish, but like I said I'm a Noble player ), Spaceship loss to Victoria in about 1960. Hoping for better on the next GOTM

 

[Markus5]

Spaceship in 1990.

Oddities, mistakes and miscalculations:
- Very early Oracle by another civ.
- Needed a few more defenders in the very early game. I lost (then regained in the next turn) an early city to the barbs.
- Should have taken care of the "American Problem" sooner.
- I traded Nationalism 10 turns before finishing the Taj Mahal and missed it by 3 turns. An AI got lucky with a few coincidental chops, I think.
- The AI isn't particularly good at invasions, is it?
- Japan didn't finish taking its island from the barbs until 1910!

I had enough fun with this game to play another random game with the same settings. I was surprised with the same larger starting landmass sharing it with another civ.

 

[AndrewN]

I had a conquest win in 1946, a reasonable result for my first Monarch finish.

I don't normally play on normal speed, I prefer epic, but I didn't notice too many problems, my main concern was hunting down all the little trundra and desert cities the AI was over keen on building

Overall I think I was a bit light on the cottages which slowed my research, and I have very few GP.

Interestingly, this is one of the few games that I didn't found a religion and although I had a number of different religions in my cities, I never swapped to one. Despite this I did spend a long time in Organised religion before I realised it was doing me no good at all and I moved back to Paganism followed by a switch to free religion.

Eventually I got Panzers and I switched to total war mode and walked over the AI

 

[Murky]

Game submitted. Space Race Victory in 1999.

I was initially going for a domination win. A massive German war machine conquered the empires of Washington, Tokugawa, Cyrus and Isabella. Late in the game, I switched over to space race after calculating how long domination would probably take.

 

[ElWanderer]

Spaceship victory in 1948, 22K points

First spoiler:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4250091&postcount=24
Second spoiler:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4257099&postcount=3

The situation in 1600AD:

Victoria and Cyrus are pleased with me and have a couple of techs I don't have (and vice versa). Isabella is pleased with me. Catherine is annoyed, after I stopped trading with her at someone's request (I forget whose!) Washington is pretty much out of it, for which he is annoyed. Tokugawa is very close to me geographically, and he's annoyed, but he doesn't seem to want to do anything about it.

My army that took part in "Operation Enduring American Freedom" was mostly upgraded and packed into ships. I formed one large task force near Berlin ready to go where I want it. I keep one macemen obsolete as he's up to 15/17 experience. As Catherine is worrying me, I keep my cities very well defended. Most of my units are out of date, but each city has a modern defender or two and in the event of an emergency the rest can be upgraded.

I almost invaded Washington again, but decided against it. I didn't want to annoy everyone else.

1690AD - Dusseldorf founded on the Eastern tip of the island to the Southwest of the mainland, snagging marble, horses, fish and whales. The rest of this particular had been settled by now, so there wasn't any danger of barbarian invaders.

1780AD - my task fleet sails at last... to take on a barbarian city in the Southeast. A war would have caused me to drop behind in the tech race. I was narrowly ahead at this point, but Victoria and Cyrus both got to physics before I could.

I built Wall Street in my capital, as Confucianism had spread far and wide. This was a tough decision to make as I'd already built the National Epic there (silly move, meant I got far too many great prophets). In the end, I resolved to build Oxford University in Washington.

1850AD - I'm a few turns away from researching flight and completing the Eiffel Tower. I've set-up defensive pacts with Cyrus and Victoria, who have a DP between them. Catherine and Tokugawa are likely opponents, as they have a DP too. Will the alliances hold the peace or will a world war break out?

At this point I was splitting my attention between keeping my forces powerful enough to cope with Catherine and Tokugawa together, whilst building all the "fun" wonders. I'd grow far enough ahead in tech to build Hollywood, Rock and Roll and Broadway uncontested. Combined with the Eiffel Tower, I was hoping to have plenty of happiness should the by-now-almost-inevitable war break out.

1878AD - I'd built the UN and been elected secretary general with about 530 out of 800 votes. A quick calculation said that I'd win the game with that many votes so I went for the vote.

1880AD - ElWanderer wins a diplomatic victory, hooray for me.... what? DARN YOU ISABELLA! Having voted for me as secretary general, she abstained from the diplomatic victory vote. Without her, I couldn't win. I was close, but not nearly close enough. I hadn't done enough to earn her vote. I had considered briefly adopting her religion, but decided it might upset the others. Looking back, I wish I had tried it.

1882AD - Catherine mounts her warhorse and lets slip the dogs of war. She rather foolishly attacked Cyrus after a rather large military build-up. Victoria and I declared on her as per the treaties we'd negotiated. Tokugawa decided not to join in. As I was still looking for a diplomatic victory, I gave Isabella a bunch of techs in return for her joining in the war against Catherine, who was now facing a 4-on-1 situation. It didn't work, as Isabella was to abstain in the next vote.

My destroyers sink Catherine's frigates. My task force of infantry sails around taking her cities. When I reached her mainland, I started flying in bombers, tanks and then mechanised infantry. The cities on her starting island fell one by one, giving me wonders, holy cities, loot and population. However, it also knocked Catherine out of the running for diplomatic victory. The next time the opportunity to vote came up, I was facing Victoria and had no votes but my own!

So I was left with the choice between going for domination and launching a spaceship. I didn't want to turn on my allies, so the latter was the only real choice. I negotiated peace with Catherine then launched my task force against Tokugawa. He was incredibly backward at this point; aside from a couple of grenadiers in Tokyo, most of his lands were defended by samurai and longbowmen. My 15/17 experience maceman got to attack twice, won both battles and became my first level-5 unit.

War weariness was becoming a problem, so I went into a Police State for the first time ever, substantially increasing my research rate.

1936AD - The Japanese empire was eliminated and I switched to Universal Suffrage. I now had 50% of the world's population, but only 37% of the land area. I was pumping out spaceship parts, though a war against the remainder of the Russian Empire could have given me backdoor domination.

1948AD - The final four parts of the spaceship were completed together and the Deutschland is launched towards Alpha Centauri . That's the first time I've managed to co-ordinate construction of the various parts. I usually have one component that takes ages and holds the whole thing up.

I really did think I was going to win 1880AD. I could have played this so much better, but I was having fun so I don't mind. If the next game is at Emperor level, which I've never played at, I'll have to buck my ideas up!

 

[Mad Professor]

Space Race Victory 1991AD
Games score 3,248 became 8,206 after victory
My first Monarch win! In my second Monarch game!

At 500AD winning this one looked almost impossible thanks to some carelessness and other stuff ups early on. I am very pleased with myself for pulling it off.

Having arrived at nearly 1600AD (my second spoiler post, which contains a link to the first spoiler: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=176988 post#4 page 1) after a 1000 years of careful nursing of the economy, I was in a financial position one might think would get me into the future, and with good relations just about all round (Isabella was stubborn) and the prospect of economic or military annihilation now somewhat removed to a distance, I reassessed how on earth I might yet still win this game, and decided that space race was my best bet, and only real possibility, though diplomatic might happen if I got very lucky.

It quickly became clear when freedom of religion started hitting home that diplomatic wasn’t going to be on my list of possibilities. Tokugawa started getting difficult, Washington liked Victoria a lot more than me, and only Cyrus was still my fast friend. I signed a mutual defense pact with him in an effort to keep the shark pack (Isabella, Tokugawa and Catherine) away. On the other hand, Isabella started getting polite, and Catherine and Victoria started talking to me, and being half nice, though not exactly friendly. I didn’t think I had what it took for diplomatic victory in that line up.

I’m not sure if the defense pact helped much or not, but since Tokugawa and Isabella both hated each other a lot more than they hated me, they were too interested attacking each other to bother about me, and later Victoria and Washington declared on Catherine at different times to keep her occupied.

By 1800AD, I hit the top of the score list, and had side-stepped diplomatic trouble between Isabella and Tokugawa who went to war on each other. I was very pleased when the two leading tech broads (Catherine and Victoria) went to war. Kill each other girls!! Blood, blood, blood. Not to be. They poked at each other for a few decades, shot a few troops, and then got peace. At least they weren’t looking at my lands while doing that. My military is really, really weak at this point, and I’m too busy trying to catch up in tech going for space race victory to pay too much attention to that. My only hope of winning is to hope I don’t get attacked.

With careful choice of what tech to study and trading immediately I got new techs, by 1850 I was just about caught up in tech. Washington had artillery, but I had Biology that he didn’t have, Victoria was still a tech ahead, but Catherine was no longer ahead of me, and Cyrus had dropped behind, so I figured I was on the right track. I had the science slider back up to 80% and I was making money each turn. I was on the right road! Unfortunately I didn’t have any coal and the only oil I had was in the water, so I’ll have to wait for plastics to get that – that could be a serious problem if there are military issues to deal with later. I do have uranium though, right near Hamburg, so that’s something at least. The lack of coal was my own silly fault for not settling that island to the south of our starting position before Isabella plonked a settler right on top of it – and technically she couldn’t see the coal when she did it either. I suspect the AI of cheating, but I can’t complain too much – like I said, I should have settled it centuries before. I was slack. I traded with Cyrus for some of his spare coal so I could build some railroads and get a few extra hammers here and there, and hoped that plastics wouldn’t be too late for the oil.

I had electricity and rocketry before 1900, and traded for Industrialism from Cyrus in 1902 and at that point (I think) finally hit the lead tech-wise. On the other hand, Victoria had got rocketry before me, and Washington had it too, and since both those guys are financial, I figured I still had a hot race on my hands. It looks like the space elevator is going to be absolutely necessary to get to the finishing line before these guys. Actually, if they’d just fight each other it would be nice, but these two are best buddies. Not good.

A faint whisper of hope hit me when Washington went to war on Catherine, but only a faint whisper. Washington was well ahead of Catherine in tech now, and well ahead in power. It was Washington I wanted suffering badly from this war, it didn’t look like it was going to happen ,and it didn’t – Washington bombarded a few Russian cities with his battleships but never sent out any troops, and nor did Catherine. Boring!

Anyhow, after rocketry, I made for the shortest route to Robotics for the space elevator, and got it – and built the space elevator (a GE for being the first to Fusion helped out!) and I thought at this stage I was in with a big chance. Victoria and Washington were busy building space ship parts, but Victoria was short some techs so I was fairly sure she wasn’t going to make it. Washington was up with me in tech, but I was a couple of parts ahead of him, and had just built the space elevator, so I thought I had it for sure.

Once I started researching future tech, I backed the research from the 100% I had managed to obtain, back to zero, and used the masses of gold that produced to do some serious upgrades in my armed forces – like warriors and archers to mech inf. and galleys to destroyers My power graph had a real nice slope for those last few turns! I was bent on protecting the cities those last few parts were being built in. At this stage I didn’t care if I lost the rest. I was worried about Washington at this stage – he’d made a couple of demands I couldn’t afford to agree to since he was my closest space race competition, and he was back to annoyed with me. Military action by Washington seemed to be the big possibility in between me and victory, so hence the upgrades and concentrating on protecting cities still producing space ship parts.

In 1988 with three turns to finish my last space ship part, and all the other parts done I was absolutely confident. Then Washington gave me a heart attack, finishing his third thruster, the cockpit, the stasis chamber and the life support all within two turns leaving him only the engine to finish. I nearly fainted as I watched the list of parts dance across the screen! I thought I had left him way behind. Not so! Fortunately he stopped an engine short, and I got the space race victory next turn.

I’m very happy with my first monarch win in a game where I considered winning impossible at 500AD. I thought my early turns were good, but somewhere after 2000BC I made a few mistakes that I’ll need to analyse carefully, because they took a 1000 years to fix!

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Conquest muddle, (1842AD conquest 49K points)
At the end of the first spoiler, I had taken most of Washington's cities including the Hindu holy city. I preparing to attack Tokugawa and meeting the world with caravels. I did some serious tech trading with Cyrus since Isabella wouldn't trade and Cathy and Vicky were both much more advanced than me. This was a bit of a shock since I pulled of the CS slingshot and was careful during my war with GW not to over expand too much. (If you lose your first settler you can afford to keep an extra city or two )

America was such nice land I basicly moved my empire. Washington had the Parthenon and became my GP farm. New York and Boston had great production so I gave Boston the HE and West Point and New York the ironworks. I moved my capital to Atlanta (near the horses) to limit maintenance and reduced the role of my original cities.

The domination wasn't that hard since the AI doesn't handle ships very well and I wasn't very worried about counter attacks or invasions. Tokugawa only had two cities on his island so I quickly moved on to Cyrus. He was my best ally but I passed him in techs and he was convenient to invade.

I never got a great prophet. I diligently spread Hinduism to all my cities for a big economic boost with the shrine which never came. The Parthenon and National Epic were producing more geat artist points than the one priest I could have in Washington and I never got lucky on the rolls. Both Berlin and Washington were hopelessly contaminated with none prophet points. I spread Taoism and Christianity to Washington after I captured Cyrus' cities for three priests but I still never got a prophet. I kept running a few extra specialists to try and speed the great prophet and kept getting artists and merchants.

So, economic troubles and heavy cottaging in most cities. I did get Versailles and Spiral Minaret which helped my financial situation but cash flow and research issues slowed my conquest. I didn't feel confident reducing research below 60% untill near the end of the game.

Cyrus, GW, and Toku were now all relegated to a iceball cities plus Toku founded a couple on the barb islands west of Berlin. Now I turned to the ladies. First Isabella to grab her two shrines and start spreading profitable religions. This wasn't really necessary because I had printing press and lots of towns at this point. The window for an accelerated conquest with a religion based economy was closed. I built a huge amount of research and economic infrastructure to reduce my maintenance problems and my empire now contained a large number of undifferentiated hybrid production/commerce cities.

I was lucky with Vicky and Cathy. They were ahead in techs until the Napoleonic era and I thought I would be attacking against their UUs. I attacked Cathy first to get the pyramids for police state. Finally, revenge for founding Confucianism the turn before I researched CoL. She had a tiny empire but was significantly more advanced than me. Luckily, she didn't have horses and my cannons and grenadiers crushed her quickly. I left her with a couple of cities for techs and rushed to Vicky. She had military tradition for a long time but only built 4 cavalry and didn't research chemistry until it was too late. Her only horses were near the edge of her empire so after the first turn of war the only gunpowder unit she could build was muskets until she upgraded a few maces to grenadiers. That was too little too late. She researched a lot of economic techs rather than rifling so I never faced redcoats. She was the only serious competition but her empire was spread on three islands. With control of the sea, she had to basicly watch me cripple her empire while her counter attack force sat in her capital.

When Vicky started to collapse, it was just a matter of cleaning up the many small cities near the poles and in barb lands. I eliminated all 6 opposing civs in about a 40 year period.

It should have been a much faster victory with a great starting position but I played poorly after my scripted 30 moves and didn't think enough about my great people when I set up my GP farm. I lost a bit of focus after the bad start. I built a crazy number of building and kept way too many cities for a conquest.

 

[paulhager]

In GOTM-8, I eked out a Cultural Win in 1992 but did so only by moving the Cultural slider to 90% and abandoning all hope of keeping up with my rivals technologically. This left me in the unenviable position of sitting passively with an army of Riflemen + Cavalry + Cannon against rivals with Aircraft + Tanks + Infantry while my 3rd city crept slowly to legendary status (a fortuitous GA near the end of the game sealed the win). Probably the only reason I wasn’t attacked was that Spaceship construction was well underway by several rivals. The turn before my win, the election for U.N. Secretary General was held – I wasn’t even on the ballot. It was that close.

In my previous post (in which I erroneously said I was playing “contender” in the subject line), I noted that the “adventurer” start gave me a good lead by 500 AD. What I didn’t realize was how bad my position actually was at that point even though I had built most of the Wonders, founded 3 religions, had established my 3 Cultural cities, and had constructed two holy shrine buildings plus the Spiral Minaret, giving me an excellent revenue stream. I had 9 cities: 8 on the island I shared with the Americans and 1 on a small island in which I had stone and a second horse resource suitable for trading.

The big mistake I made earlier was neglecting my only opportunity of knocking out the Americans. When I called off my war, America was down to 2 cities. I don’t think calling for a brief armistice was necessarily the wrong decision. America’s Horse Archers were giving me some problems and I figured I could improve my road system, heal my main attack units, and take down the Americans at my leisure. I had the only Iron resource and once I had Horse Archers myself (I was a few turns away) I’d have the technological edge. However, I decided to wait for catapults (New York had 50% defense), which allowed the Americans to spread rapidly off island – a large number of islands were reachable by trireme - while adopting my state religion. By the time I had contemplated I’d finish the Americans off, they were too spread out for me to easily fight them (3 cities on the island and 3 off). They had also become quite friendly. I figured America was so far behind it would never again be a threat so I essentially ignored it from then on.

I should have resumed the war after the obligatory 10 turns: I would have been churning out Swordsmen and Chariots with F2 promotions and the first few Horse Archers with F2 promotions would just be rolling off the assembly line. I could have easily out-produced the Americans and pillaged their horse (which would have ended that threat) and other improvements. I would have starved them out before using human wave attacks to finish them off.

Had I taken out the Americans, I might have not been as far ahead in 500 but I would have eliminated one rival and had 12 cities as my base. Moreover, I wouldn’t have found myself completely bereft of oil at a critical point of the game – all the oil on the island was in American territory. Eventually, it was the Americans and later the British who pulled ahead. The Americans rebuilt a city I had razed (giving them 3 on the island) with another 10 or so elsewhere. The “organized” trait really allows the Americans to expand.

Normally I’d expect the combination of the Pyramids + first to Liberalism would be an easy game winner. Error number one was that I didn’t realize how easy expansion was on this type of map (I’ve never played on it before). Error number two was failure to appreciate how quickly rivals can catch up at Monarch level. In this case, a revitalized America catalyzed the technological push through trade with the English, making both a threat.

So, the moral of the story is to kick ‘em when they’re down. Use peace for the sole purpose of improving your position. Don’t make my mistake of waiting – resume the attack just as soon as you can. The fewer rivals you have, the better.

 

[Equendil]

Result: A spaceship victory in 2040 for 6605 points

My original aim was a domination victory. Why ? I have no idea, just wanted to try. I didn't intend to wage war early for multiple reasons. I didn't really know how to proceed on archipelagos in the first place, lack of open sea units and decent transports until galleons, late unique units for germany, and my (bad) builder habbits all made me delay war. Lack of commitment contacting other civs early on meant I was stuck with Washington to trade techs with for a long time. I was hoping for other civs to find me, but apart from Tokugawa who of course wouldn't trade, that didn't happen. In those conditions, I delayed war even longer than I intended to.

Eventually, I made contacts with all civs and circumvented the globe (though it took me forever , I couldn't find a way for a long time with my galleys, and apparently, other civs had trouble too), attacked Washington and took control of the Island, I was planning to take on the Japanese next then most likely Cyrus, then finish my domination of the globe with panzers. That just didn't happen. Russia declared on me while I was starting my conquest of Japan, forcing me on my island for many many turns when frigates showed up (I only had galleons), and since Catherine didn't want to hear about peace, I had to fight a long and distant war with Russia. I eventually took control of most of Catherine's territory and some Japanese cities, but it was very late in the game.

Cyrus and Elisabeth had taken advantage of relatively peaceful times (for them) to expand and develop their civilization, and when the first SS casings were built, I had no choice but to pursue a spaceship victory. My long war with Catherine had me in no position for a domination victory anyway. The size of my territory on the archipelago map looked deceptively big, but was in fact only 27% when I won. In 2040 the last of the spaceship part was built, and I took off with a miserable score.

----

Rough timeline, picking up from my first spoiler :

c. 300AD: Only four cities (Cologne just founded on the northern part of my side of the island), but looking good. Berlin has five wonders (Stonehenge, Oracle, Colossus, Parthenon, Great Library), I have founded the only religion of the island and I have the shrine. I overlooked exploration of the world until late, so I'm missing contact with several civs, maybe most, can't remember exactly who I had contacted by then. Anyhow, I was doing alright in score and techs, though starting to wonder how I'm going to win by domination. I should have wiped out Washington by now.

c. 450AD. I declare war on Isabella. Only reason is that she's blocking the way of one of my two galleys trying to circumvent the globe, and won't hear about open borders. I'll make peace with her once I'm past her islands. Tokugawa also converts to Christianity (the religion I founded, apparently neither Washington nor Tokugawa had a religion spread to their cities up to that point, so my religion automatically spread).

c. 540AD. Chichen Itza is completed in Berlin.
c. 720AD. Sistine Chapel built in Berlin. I'm a sucker for wonders ...

c. 900AD. At long last, the globe is circumvented by me for the first time. My galleys had to travel a lot to find a path. I'm building military to take on Washington. Why o why did I wait so long again ?

c. 1040 AD War on Washington at long last! I intend to rush for his two main cities New York and Washington first thing and split his territory in half. New York falls in 1090AD, Atlanta was lightly defended and falls in 1110 while my army is heading to Washington, which falls in 1210. Atlanta was sneakily taken back in 1200 and recaptured by me in 1210 also. San Francisco is captured in 1250, Boston in 1260, at which point I make peace with Washington, I don't want my economy to suffer too much. Washington is left with two small cities on my island that I don't really want, and another on a distant island. Time to prepare for the invasion of Japan, I'll finish off Washington later. I still only have galleys though, so I chose to consolidate my empire until galleons.

c. 1440 AD. I'm the first to discover liberalism. Can't remember what free tech I picked. Should have gone for astronomy for galleons and build up military at that point though.

c. 1525 AD. Versaille built in New York, that'll help my economy and I can still build the forbidden palace in future territories.

c. 1715 AD I lost sight of my goal and indulging into my builder addiction. Taj Mahal built in Berlin. Is it really 1715 already ?? I declare war on Tokugawa in 1735 because Cyrus asked me, but I'm not ready for it.

c. 1804 AD Statue of liberty built in Berlin.

c. 1806 AD. I make peace with Tokugawa and declare war on Washington. Philadelphia and Chicago both fall in 1820 AD. All the island is mine. However, Catherine declares war on me in 1812, probably dragged into it by Washington. I make peace with Washington in 1820. Catherine is high on the score, and her islands are far away. I'll try to make peace with Catherine and follow up with a war on the Japanese.

c. 1858 AD. Catherine doesn't want peace but she can go to hell, I declare war on Tokugawa again. Osaka falls in 1860. Tokyo in 1872. That's the eastern japanese island taken care of. The western will follow.

c. 1880 AD. Russian frigates are popping all over the place. I only have galleons. I'm pretty much stuck on my island(s), Frigates are soon researched, however, I'm rather unlucky with naval battles and lose a lot of frigates, and Catherine keeps sending more, blockading my cities and sinking a few of my galleons and escorts. I'm clearly no master at sea. Ironclads should take care of that.

c. 1886 AD. My good friend Cyrus agrees to declare war on Russia.

c. 1896 AD. Pentagon is built in Berlin. Just as my first ironclads are ready to take care of Russian frigates, I spot a russian ... destroyer. Argh! Catherine, you just wait for my battleships and panzers ...

c. 1912 AD. Brodway built in Berlin. Didn't I intend a domination victory by the way?

c. 1921 AD. I make peace with Tokugawa, I forgot I was still at war with Japan.

c. 1930 AD. At long last, I've gotten rid of Catherine navy with battleships, however, she manages to sneak past my sentinels around the former japanese island with a few transports. Osaka is captured.

c. 1932 AD. I had transports on the way to the russian territory and capture a minor city on an isolated micro island. Who's laughing now?

c. 1946 AD. Osaka is mine again. Transports full of panzers and battleships are heading to the main russian coast.

c. 1947 AD. I have completed the Apollo program. Still no intention to win by anything but domination, but I'm just fooling myself. Still, I have bombers and airports to transfer units, battleships all over the place, I only need a beach head on an island to capture all the cities in a few turns. Yet, it's so late into the game, and there's so many islands and so many cities ...

c. 1954 AD. I capture Yakursk, which I will use as a beach head to take on the russian cities. Sakae falls in 1960 and is razed, Orenburg is captured in 1962, Two turns later, Victoria completes the Apollo program. *sigh*. I'll use a couple cities for spaceship production just in case.

c. 1966 AD. I complete the Three Gorges Dam. I declare war on Tokugawa, can't remember why, probably got dragged in by another civ. He's no threat anyhow.

c. 1978 AD. Moscow is captured, and I make peace with Catherine and Tokugawa. It takes so damn long to transport units around.

c. 1987 AD. I complete the Space Elevator. Obviously, I'm going to have to win by spaceship. Since it'll take quite some time to research the last techs, I'll keep busy a bit with war until it's over. I declare war on Catherine again in 1990. St-Petersburg falls in 1991, Smolenks in 1996, Yaroslavl in 1998, Roscov in 2000, Khabarovsk in 2003, then I make peace with Catherine, her remaining cities are on ice tiles and distant mini islands. She shouldn't have pissed me off.

c. 2039. Stasis Chamber built, victory is mine. My 22 cities only cover 27% of the territory ...

Mistakes :

- Going for domination victory on archipelagos ? Not a good idea.
- Not committing to war early on and until victory. Should have taken on Washington early, then my research path should have been all about navy and military units. Of course, the war with Catherine didn't help either, her islands were farthest away from mine, and it took me forever to overcome her navy until I had battleships.

Barbarians in 2040

 

[Pious_Pete]

Cultural Win around 1860 AD.

I was going to go for an Oracle COL slingshot, but having read the pre-game discussion I decided to go for Colossus & Great Lighthouse instead. This worked a treat. Together with an early academy, I was able to keep research up around 80% and raced through my tech research to Democracy. I can´t recall exactly when I got there, but it was 100s of years earlier than I am used to.

Having concentrated on getting Metal casting early (for the Colossus), and together with the Bismark´s industrial trait, I was able to build forges early in all my six cities.

I was aiming for a quick cultural win. (I couldn´t care less about the score).

I thought I was well placed, but in the end I limped home to a rather slow time.

There were two problems. I only had six cities; and I only had two religions.

So I have a couple of questions for more experienced players.

What should I have done to encourage more religions to spread to my civ? (I founded Conf from COL relatively early, and another spread around 800AD). I made contact with all the other civs by exploration relatively soon, though I never really had a complete map. I was expecting with all the trade routes from the Great Lighthouse for more religions to come my way.

Also, was sticking at six cities really wise? I´ve read in other posts on cultural victories that this is the optimal number. In other GOTMs, I´ve tried the same game a couple of times (after the event) with both six and nine cities. I´ve found that it doesn´t seem to make much difference. (The extra culture coming from the extra cathedrals seems to be more or less offset by the extra time needed to build the temples and cathedrals).

However, I was wondering whether in this game given that I´d finished building/buying with my forges/gold from the Great Lighthouse & Colossus pretty early, I wouldn´t have been better off founding three more cities in some islands just to get an extra two cathedrals.

 

[mike p]

Well, I ended up limping to a cultural victory somewhere in the mid twentieth century. America was building spaceship parts like mad and then I spent 6 Great Artists I had accumulated to hit legendary in three cities.

As I mentioned in the first spoiler, I decided to leverage the industrious trait to build wonders for a cultural victory. Unfortunatly I missed stonehenge and the oracle by 2 and 3 turns, and founding Confucianism by 1 turn. For early wonders, all I got was the Colossus and Chichen Itza.

I didn't get a second religion spread to me until the late middle ages. The crap city that I took from Izzy finally became Jewish and I was able to spread that throughout my empire.

Someone beat me to Christianity, but I still burned a Great Prophet to get Theology because Sistine Chapel would be a big help. I started building it and I figured that with 5 turns to go, it was safe to trade to Washington - I was industrious, had marble, and a head start. There was no way I could lose it. The next turn he spawned a Great Engineer and rushed it on me.

I was hella pissed! I did manage to snag the Taj Mahal, but that's all I got for wonders all game.

The only thing that probably went well was that instead of stopping research at Liberalism, I stopped at Constitution. That meant that all of my artist specialists got the science bonus from Representation so I was able to also research Military Tradition and Rifling, along with a few other techs that helped my defense while still running 100% culture. (I had the hindu shrine and was trading copper to two other civs for health and several gold per turn which provided enough income. I also had a couple of merged artists.)

Having a Defensive pact with Washington really helped too. Spain attacked me and his destroyers sent their navy packing. For peace, I gave Isabella the city I took from her way back when - it was my sixth city, but was of no further use since I had already built my second Synagogue and Mandir.

Still, I feel pretty good eking out a cultural win when almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

 

[MrRudy]

Continued from the previous post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4253891&postcount=40

Revenge to Washington

By 1290 AD I had accumulated nice numbers of maces+cats and declare WAR on Washington. By this time he already has longbowmen. My plan is to raize unnecessary cities and take the good ones from him. Anyway, I am unlikely to take over the whole his empire. In 1310 AD Atlanta fall in to my hands. The city was quite poorly guarded. I set my troops towards the next target, i.e. Seattle. It gets raized soon afterwards. Then I aimed towards Boston - this city seemed to be better guarded - some 5 logbowmen, elephants + cats. Nevertheless, it is unable to withstand severe force of mine and falls into my hands in 1410 AD. By that time my forces had become smaller a bit and going towards capital would be a waste of units since it had to be well guarded. So, I set my forces towards Philadelphia which is as good guarded as Boston. Capturing it was a real challenge, but it also fell to Bismarck in 1490 AD. Now my army had been reduced at least by a half in size and further conquest seemed to be over my capabilities. Futhermore Washington had already managed to get knights. So, in 1500 AD I make peace with Washington. He is also willing to give me nice amounts of money by accepting the treaty.

Tokugawa poor Tokugawa...

After the war, I'm again at the top of the list in score. Soon afterwards Vicky asks me to join in the war against Tokugawa. As I didn't want to spoil my relationship with Vicky and Tokugawa has always been annoyed towards me I decide to join against him in 1525 AD. I have a nice navy at this time and several maces+cats left from my previous war - so I load them in my galleons and sail towards nearby island to the East. In 1580 AD I capture Osaka. By this time Tokugawa was only getting longbowmen. Capturing Kyoto was a real challenge as it was guarded in quite big numbers. I had to unload a bunch of grenadiers before I managed to capture in 1740 AD. I make peace with Tokoguwa as the whole small island is now mine.

The Space Race

After the war, I had to recover my economy a bit as I was running only 40-50% science and was loosing a tech race to Vicky. I decide to go for a space race as going for another war against Washington should have been pretty challenging. He was set to military techs and had even better units then I did, so I also tried to keep my military up to date. I also signed defensive pact with Vicky in 1804 AD, and in te same year Catherine declares war on both of us. Well... although she said to fear her cavalary, all she did was to unload 2 maceman and 1 longbowmen on my Japanese island. Of course, this was an act of despare as she saw as a potential threat. And the war lasted just for several turns. I was challenging with Vicky througout the game. Luckily she didn't care about winning the Space Race victory that much. I was first to build the Apollo Program in 1962 AD. Getting the Internet in 1996 AD was a huge step foward as now at last I was on the same pace as Vicky in techs. Washington also joined the Space racequite steadily, but he was lacking aluminium that would have helped him a lot. Of course, I didn't give it to him. In 2036 AD I built the Space Elevator which was insignificant by then. And in 2037 AD the space ship was launched to Alpha Centauri.

Wonders I built after 500 AD:

1520 AD - The Taj Mahal
1922 AD - The Statue of Liberty
1963 AD - The Pentagon
1976 AD - The Eiffel Tower
2036 AD - The Space Elevator

The Assesment of the Game

I was vey pleased to get victory in this game. Although 2037 AD is not a very impresssive date for the Space Race victory, it was my first game ever won on Monarch. To add even more, I hadn't managed to win any Prince game before (out of some 4). So, now most likely I will not play on Noble.

 

[Thrallia]

depressing...I had written out a nice, long spoiler for my end game...but then my internet crashed and I lost my spoiler...so I'll try to rewrite it later.

For now I'll just say I won a diplomatic victory in 1972, 110 years after I was first given the vote(and which I was only 31 votes short on at that time)

My adventurer adjusted score was 11,385 points. And it looks like right now I've got the fasted Diplo victory(the only diplo victory?). If I'd won the first time, I think I would have a good chance of keeping that title, seeing what the dates are thus far, but I doubt I'll beat many people in time as more and more people send in results.

 

[Vynd]

So I have a couple of questions for more experienced players.

What should I have done to encourage more religions to spread to my civ? (I founded Conf from COL relatively early, and another spread around 800AD). I made contact with all the other civs by exploration relatively soon, though I never really had a complete map. I was expecting with all the trade routes from the Great Lighthouse for more religions to come my way.

I believe it is impossible for religions to spread for free into cities that already have a religion in them. (If it isn't impossible, it must be very rare.) After your cities have an initial religion in them, your only hope of getting more religions is through missionaries, or by taking cities with other religions by force.

Also, was sticking at six cities really wise? I´ve read in other posts on cultural victories that this is the optimal number. In other GOTMs, I´ve tried the same game a couple of times (after the event) with both six and nine cities. I´ve found that it doesn´t seem to make much difference. (The extra culture coming from the extra cathedrals seems to be more or less offset by the extra time needed to build the temples and cathedrals).

However, I was wondering whether in this game given that I´d finished building/buying with my forges/gold from the Great Lighthouse & Colossus pretty early, I wouldn´t have been better off founding three more cities in some islands just to get an extra two cathedrals.

Generally speaking I prefer at least 9 cities, so I can get as many Cathedrals as possible in all three Cultural Center cities. It isn't absolutely essential. If one of your cities is way ahead of the others in culture production, (via Wonders, most likely) then it may not need cathedrals. There's no point in getting one city to Legendary status 100 turns ahead of the other two. But the fastest possible culture win is probably going to involve 9 cities and max cathedrals in all three Culture cities.

Under the circumstances you've described, it might have been a good idea to capture a city or three that contained religions you didn't have. On this map you probably could have found a relatively isolated city beloning to a weaker empire that you could grab with a small force. From there you could spread the religion to the rest of your empire.

 

[ungy]

Diplo in 1740, score 52553 --contender

Decided to go for the CS slingshot given the great starting city. Ended up a little slower than I would have liked--not sure if my path was correct and detoured to BW as I was having some barb problems. Went fishing, ah, wheel, pottery, writing, bw, myst, poly, priest, col (I think), and got oracle in 1080. Based on previous posts this was a lucky break.

Was initially planning dom, but then changed to diplo as I have little diplo experience and thought it might be more interesting. Went on a wonder spree building both GL, Col before war with Washington in 500AD (he DOW'd me). Was a bit of a grind as I was mace + cat vs. longbow and lots of hills but by 1000 he was down to 1 city. Blundered by building sistene chapel--did that before I decided diplo. Almost built several useless wonders (especially marble) and stopped to get the $ when AI built them.

Despite the great start things slowed down quite a bit as I had difficulty trading. Took over Toku's island--left him with a couple of ice cities.

took maybe 6 barb cities to bulk up my pop--blew the late game totally and got bad luck (and bad play) with GP.

Late game mistakes--forgot to use my 2 GS for physics--after that they were of no use. thought I could always do golden age as I had several useless artists but didn't know second golden age took 3 specs.

Another mistake--lost the first round of voting. Needed Cathy or Cyrus to vote with me and forgot to convert to HR to get Cathy. Vic had gone Free religion a few turns earlier and got her relations improved with both of them.

Also had a few chops that I mistimed on building the UN with purchase.
So all in all I wasted about 10 turns near the end but a reasonable game.

I usually play epic (and prefer it)--my guess is the speed will slow down the really fast conquistadors